Whistleblower Edward Snowden had plenty to say about the news of Donald Trump’s indictment on Twitter on June 9. Trump is facing several charges including one under the Espionage Act.
He was indicted on June 8 by a grand jury in the southern district of Florida in relation to violating of US national security laws and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
According to Newsweek, the FBI seized classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last August after a grand jury issued a subpoena in May 2022 requiring him to return all the documents with classified markings. Meanwhile, he denies all allegations.
Snowden Blaming Washington
Snowden blamed Washington for letting the cat out of the bag. “All kidding aside, it’s not wrong to say that the indictment of Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents is a case of selective prosecution. Spilt secrets are very much the currency of Washington, and Trump was not alone in splashing them around. He was just the least graceful. Still, it’s hard to feel sorry for a man who had four years in the White House to reform that broken system – and instead left it in place to the detriment of the American public. He is caught within the same gears his own hands once turned,” he said on Twitter on June
In a much earlier tweet in 2019, Snowden had also shared a picture of Trump surrounded by large amounts of fast food inside the White House stating, “Did somebody say indictments?”
One Twitter user asked Snowden what he would have done in the same shoes to which Snowden said, “Haven’t really thought about it, Hank, but I’d surely reduce the number of things we classify by more than 99% – and you would not find the remainder in my bathroom or behind my Corvette.”
Target Joe Biden
Snowden’s barbed comment was also targeted at President Joe Biden who has kept classified documents dating back to the Obama administration in his locked garage where his Corvette is at his home in Wilmington Delaware.
The Espionage Act 1971 says that individuals are banned from obtaining “any information related to the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be used for the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,” according to the First Amendment Encylopedia on the Middle Tennessee State University’s website. The law also covers the improper handling of sensitive information related to national security.
Famous Espionage Act violators include Snowden and Julian Assange who founded WikiLeaks.
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The photo above is from Wikipedia